Brown.

I have been sitting here for the last 30 minutes reading through all of the applications that I submitted. All those frustrating days sitting in my cupboard of a bed on campus, pulling my hair out at my kitchen table back home with paperwork strewn everywhere...the years and months and hours put into my future, all summed up into neat little paragraphs of 2000 characters or less.

So yes, I know I have worked hard. Not necessarily academically, but I have worked very hard on myself. I've worked so hard to be the person I want to be, to shape myself, my views, my mind, my core. This work has been more than any grade could ever convey. I know I have worked, just in different ways than most people have.

But still, I have to stand back and ask, "Why me?". To this, my sister would reply, "Valerie, why not you? Who else? Who better?". But she is not here to say that (and I miss her more than she knows) and so therefore I find myself asking answerless questions.

I do not think I will ever know why I get the opportunities that I do. In my head, I am still a 10 year old girl playing kickball with the boys in an open field in Kansas. I am still an awkward 14 year old whose biggest problem is that every morning she pokes her eye with the mascara wand while trying to apply makeup to make herself look older. I am still the stubborn 17 year old who refuses to do half of her schoolwork because she can't see any benefit in spending time writing essays about books that she read 6 years earlier.

I don't know why things happen to me. I am sure that I must be making some kind of choices to influence things, but I don't know what those choices are. It always surprises me that good things can happen, almost like the universe keeps dragging me to exactly where I need to be.

It is comforting to see everyone's lives spreading out before them. It assures me that we all actually do keep breathing after graduation, that we can be real and interesting people even when we are far away from this place. It makes me realize that I will see people again, that we can still be connected, that although we won't live together anymore, phone lines and internet connections and 20 minute train rides and international flights really could be enough to hold it all in place.

I still want to ask, "Why me?". But I think for now it's best if I just shut up, smile, enjoy the sun, and give in to the tidal pull of the world that is urging me out, urging me forward, urging me to let go.